


remember me to steshka

by andibeth82



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Identity Issues, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Soviet Spies roadtrip through Russia, with a lot of feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-28
Updated: 2017-02-28
Packaged: 2018-09-27 07:36:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9983108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andibeth82/pseuds/andibeth82
Summary: Barnes stares at Natasha, his dark eyes narrowing. “Are youbribingme, Natalia?”“Maybe.” Natasha holds his gaze, willing herself not to react at the casual drop of her name. “Come with me to Russia. Help me with something I can’t do on my own. In return, when we’re done, whether or not I get what I want, I’ll let you go wherever. You can go back to the U.S. or hide out in some shitty apartment in Bucharest or, I don’t know -- you can even go back to this place. Steve will come find you, eventually, but I won’t tell him I know where you are, because I won’t. I'll give you a head start on disappearing again.”Barnes considers this, scuffing his foot against the floor. “Why me?”Natasha takes a breath. “Because right now, I don’t know who I am. And you might be the only person in this goddamn world who does.”





	

**Author's Note:**

> Um, so this was basically a feelings explosion of Bucky/Nat, based on an idea that wouldn't leave my head -- the fact that Natasha and Bucky spent some time together after CA:TWS and before CA:CW, coupled with the new canon we got in CA:CW about Natasha's detour to visit her parents. I apologize for nothing.
> 
> Title from Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 because I am nothing if not predictable. Thanks to gecko for beta. <3

Natasha doesn’t know really why she ends up in California. She just knows it’s the first place she has to start.

“If I knew you were coming, I would’ve made you an omelet,” Pepper says when she walks downstairs and finds Natasha sitting at the kitchen table of Tony’s recently renovated Malibu mansion, legs swinging against the counter seat. Natasha looks up from her mug and the coffee that she’s pilfered from the brewing machine.

“I didn’t really have time to call.”

“I figured.” Pepper moves into the kitchen. “He’s not here, you know. He spends most of his time in New York, now.”

“I know.” Natasha twirls a piece of hair around her finger, saying everything and nothing all at once. Pepper sighs, raising an eyebrow.

“Right,” she says lightly. “Of course you do.”

Natasha watches her pour cereal, watches the way her shoulders tense; there’s little for Pepper to be afraid of now but she hasn’t seen Pepper since New York and even that was a situation where there had barely been time to talk. She wonders if Pepper has ever really forgiven her for Ivan Vanko and the Stark Expo; even though Natasha hadn’t done anything except save the man Pepper loved from hurting himself as well as the world.

“Look, I just wanted to ask --”

“I do, you know,” Pepper interrupts, joining Natasha at the table and sitting down. “Forgive you. If that’s what you’re here about.”

Natasha forces out a laugh. “It’s not,” she says truthfully. “And you’re about five years too late with that. But in the grand scheme of everything that’s happened lately, it’s nice to know.”

“So why _are_ you here?” Pepper asks curiously.

Natasha sighs. “I’m…” She tries to figure out how to put words together without sounding too stupid. “I’m looking for myself, I guess.”

“I see.” Pepper raises an eyebrow. “And that involves showing up randomly in Malibu, and breaking into houses in the middle of the night?”

“It involves a lot of things,” Natasha replies. “I realized I don’t really know a lot about myself right now -- what I want, or who I am. I’m hoping maybe I can figure that out.”

Pepper takes a breath and lets it out slowly. “Well. I’d like to help,” she says after a moment. “But I’m afraid I only know Natalie Rushman, not Natasha Romanoff.”

“I know,” Natasha says sadly. “Believe me. You’re not alone.”

 

***

 

Pepper invites her to sit on the balcony after breakfast.

“It’s one of the first things we renovated,” Pepper explains as she hands Natasha a glass of wine. “Tony thought I wanted to do it so we could have parties, but I just really missed the view. You don’t get views like this in New York.”

“No,” Natasha agrees, looking out over the ocean that seems to stretch endlessly into the distance. “You don’t.” She skirts her fingers over the stem of the glass, swirling the liquid. “A little early for day drinking, isn’t it?”

Pepper laughs under her breath. “I know. Sometimes, I wonder if I’m turning into him, but this is pretty much my only glass of the day.”

Natasha smiles wryly and sips her wine. “If you live with Tony Stark and you date Tony Stark, I don’t see any reason to pretend that you need to drink.” She pauses. “I need your help.”

Pepper sighs. “I knew it.”

“It’s not like that,” Natasha continues, trying to keep the frustration out of her voice.

Pepper regards her carefully. “How do you expect me to help you?”

Natasha looks down at her glass of wine. “SHIELD. Hydra. Everything that happened...I think I want to do some research.”

“On?” Pepper looks interested, and Natasha clears her throat.

“On me. Well, more specifically, on my past.”

Pepper frowns. “I’m confused. And I still don’t know how I can help you.”

Natasha leans forward, squinting against the morning sun. “I need paperwork,” she says finally. “Documents, anything Tony might have in his files from my days as Natalie Rushman. Or anything you might have in your files that Fury gave you at some point. I need to travel to Russia and using my own alias right now, after everything that happened in D.C., it's...”

“I saw you on the news,” Pepper adds as Natasha trails off. “I have to say, I was impressed.”

“Don’t be,” Natasha says flatly. “It wasn’t like I didn’t know what I was doing. It was basically a SHIELD hearing, except the men in the room were about as nice as a bunch of Republicans trying to block an abortion bill.”

Pepper smiles, her lips turning up slightly. “You said you didn’t know a lot about yourself. What exactly are you looking for in Russia?”

Natasha runs her tongue over her teeth. “That’s the funny thing,” she says, inclining her head and staring out at the Pacific Ocean. “I’m not really sure. But when I find out, I’ll let you know.”

 

***

 

California was the first stop. Going back to D.C. is the second. But this time, Natasha knows exactly why she’s here, and who she’s looking for, and why she needs him.

It’s not that hard to find Barnes. He’s made his home in the place Natasha least expects: a rundown neighborhood just north of the Maryland border, in an equally rundown apartment complex. Natasha swings in through the fire escape and busts open a window by kicking the weak glass with her feet, trying not to feel too badly about the home invasion. If her plan worked, and if she was convincing enough, Barnes wouldn’t be making his home here anymore, anyway.

Natasha stands still in the living room, alert and on guard as her eyes adjust to the darkness. _He’s a ghost_ , she had told Steve, and even though she knew who Barnes actually was, it didn’t make her words any less true. She trains her ears for sounds of anyone that could be moving around, and takes in all the open spaces that could allow for hiding or traps. When she’s sure moving around won’t kill her, she starts to slowly search the apartment.

It’s small -- a one-bedroom, with a twin bed harboring a sunken-in mattress and a tiny, dirty bathroom. The floor looks like it hasn’t been swept in weeks or even months, and a thin layer of dust coats the top of the bookshelf in the corner. Natasha leaves the lights off and sits down on the stool next to the small countertop, toying with an open carton of cigarettes. When she goes bored, she lights one, focusing on the orange ember as her only source of light in an otherwise dark space.

She waits. And waits. And waits.

“What are you doing here?”

A flash of metal. A voice hoarse enough to pass for sandpaper. Natasha tries to control her heartbeat.

_You know him. He’s just Barnes, he trained you, you know him, you know him --_

“You know me.”

The Soldier doesn’t move from where he’s standing, just inside of the apartment door.

“Do I?”

“Yes. You do.” She speaks in Russian and the words feel strangely foreign on her tongue, almost as foreign as they sound coming out of her mouth.

“Ty znayesh' menya.” _You know me. I know you and you know me._

She sees him falter, just slightly, but it’s enough to allow her to relax. Natasha takes a deep breath, stubbing out the remains of her cigarette on the countertop. “I want you to say my name. I want you to prove that this is real.”

For a moment, she’s sure she’s provoked her death. Barnes moves, and in two seconds, he’s not at the door anymore -- he’s in front of her, silver fingers tight around her throat, eyes dark with pain and something else she can’t describe. The stench of metal and dirt and sweat is heavy in her nostrils, and he _smells_ like war despite not having been in a war since the 40’s, and then --

And then --

_“Natalia.”_

Natasha manages to swallow despite the hold he has on her throat. “Well. You could at least recognize me.”

That gets a smile out of him -- and to classify his expression as a smile would be generous, she thinks. He releases his grip and she stumbles, coughing quietly as she regains control of her breathing and her balance. He eyes her from a distance, and then moves his gaze to the cigarette pack.

“Maybe you should give up smoking.”

She snorts at that, even though it hurts her chest. “Maybe I should give up old boyfriends who have a knack for trying to kill me.”

She’s sussed him out by this point -- anyone else wouldn’t dare to be so brash to the fucking _Winter Soldier,_ but Natasha has no fear. Natasha’s done this already. She just needs to re-learn how to do it again. Funny, how had Clint spent all that time trying to unmake and then remake her, and here she is, unraveled again, trying to make herself the exact same person he dragged away from. She almost feels sorry for her partner. It’s not his fault _his_ project was a screwed up orphan with a haunted past.

“What do you want from me?”

Natasha shifts her balance from one foot to the other. “Help.”

Barnes sighs. “Okay. And what if I don’t _want_ to help?”

“It might be in your best interest to.” She reaches into her bag and takes out a folder, putting it between them. “This is you. Or rather, your file. I have to run an errand back in D.C. and when I do, I’m going to give it to Steve -- your friend -- because he wants to find you. I’m going to give it to him no matter what you say, because he’s my friend, and because he deserves my trust right now after what we just went through.”

Barnes stares at Natasha, his dark eyes narrowing. “Are you _bribing_ me, Natalia?”

“Maybe.” Natasha holds his gaze, willing herself not to react at the casual drop of her name. “Come with me to Russia. Help me with something I can’t do on my own. In return, when we’re done, whether or not I get what I want, I’ll let you go wherever. You can go back to the U.S. or hide out in some shitty apartment in Bucharest or, I don’t know -- you can even go back to this place. Steve will come find you, eventually, but I won’t tell him I know where you are, because I won’t. I'll give you a head start on disappearing again.”

Barnes considers this, scuffing his foot against the floor. “Why me?”

Natasha takes a breath. “Because right now, I don’t know who I am. And you might be the only person in this goddamn world who does.”

 

***

 

“I blew all my covers. I gotta go figure out some new ones.”

She hands Steve the file from Kiev, says “you might not want to pull on that thread,” and walks away. When she’s gotten a safe distance from the gravesite, she palms the phone hidden in her pocket and texts the burner she’d given Barnes at his apartment.

_Let’s go pull on that thread._

 

***

 

She stops in Walgreens and buys a shaving kit and some body wash, then drives to the nearest Target and fills a cart with shirts and pants and underwear, blindly guessing his size by the frame of his body and comparing it to Clint’s. She gives him a timeline (five hours max) and a safe place at Sharon’s old apartment, and by the time Natasha meets him outside, he’s shaved and cleaned himself up. The flannel he's chosen to wear looks too large on his thin body, and his hair, despite a wash, looks unkempt.

“I feel weird,” he says as he tugs at the fabric covering his metal arm. His voice is still dull, as if he’s trying to figure out how to use it again, haunted eyes scouring the car as if he’s trying to figure out if there’s an escape route.

“You look weird,” Natasha decides, and he gives a small smile in return.

 

***

 

It goes like this: Sokovia to Belarus to Kiev. They don’t run into any problems, which Natasha finds herself grateful for. Pepper’s arsenal of Natalie Rushman materials ran deep, thanks in part to her meticulous filing and organizational skills. Of course, she tells the airport security officials, she only  _looks_ like the Avenger from television. Her name is clearly Natalie Rushman, and her birthday and social security number is in no way associated with _that_ Natasha Romanoff. She buys a touristy-looking Washington D.C. hat anyway, shoving it over her red hair, stuffing the loose strands underneath the brim, just to be safe. Straight hair was a bitch and a half, and it looked worse than it felt, but at least it was easier to hide.

“I don’t know who I am either,” Barnes says while they’re standing at the ticket counter. Natasha, who has been concentrating on scouring her bag to find enough money for the train fare, looks up in puzzlement.

“What?”

“You said...in my apartment, you said you didn’t know who you were.” Barnes shrugs, the motion slightly awkward thanks to his arm. “I don’t know who I am, either.”

Natasha lets out a breath. “That’s not why I asked you to come,” she says, even though she wonders if it is. They were two halves of a whole, weren’t they? At least, they were when it came down to it. Clint knew what it was like to be unmade and Steve knew what it was like to lose your past, but Barnes...Bucky...whatever his name is, whatever he calls himself now, he’s the same as her: made, remade, broken, torn, put back together in pieces that don’t quite fit. Natasha rubs her eyes. Her head hurts, and her feet hurt, and she’s been traveling for too many hours with too many still to go.

“Nat --”

 _Natalia._ It’s almost enough to snap her out of her fatigued thoughts. Almost.

She procures a one way ticket to Volgograd, ignores the woman at the ticket counter who gives her a funny look at the way she pronounces _Volgograd_ , and god, has it really been this long since she’s spoken in native Russian to someone? She cringes inwardly at what must sound like undercover-induced linguistics. Barnes has no problem, she notices, his tongue rapidly firing off the syllables in a much less stilted way, and she feels a tinge of regret and frustration.

“We’ve got a few stops until Kiev,” he says after they board the train, shoving his bag under the seat. “You can get some sleep, if you want.”

Natasha snorts. “You’re gonna sleep?”

Barnes considers her question. “Nah. Not really.”

“Me, neither.” She stretches out with her legs on the seat across from him. She doesn’t know why she expects Barnes to take the seat opposite her but he doesn’t. He sits next to her and leaning back against the headrest.

“Why are you doing this, Natalia?”

Natasha’s careful not to meet his eyes. “I really don’t know. Ask me again in a few days.”

 

***

 

Three missed calls from Clint in the past week alone, adding up to fifteen missed calls overall. She stands in the bathroom of the train compartment, holding the phone out in front of her, fingers aching to dial the number she knows so well and tell him that she’s okay. Laura’s missed calls come from a different phone altogether, which is normal enough. Sometimes, if Natasha goes AWOL, Laura will try to get in touch knowing that she’s avoiding Clint for some reason. Natasha’s built up more than enough trust between her and Laura to feel comfortable telling her things that sometimes, she just couldn’t tell her partner.

She knows he’s worried. She should’ve called him after the fall of SHIELD. But she knows he’d seen her at the Senate meeting, and that at least was some form of confirmation that she was alive and not dead, or masquerading as dead.

She couldn’t call him now with this brokenness inside of her, the Romanoff girl torn somewhere between Natalia and Natasha. Not when she was somewhere between half a person and someone with a full history, someone who was more than what they made her.

She needs time.

“What’s up?”

Barnes is waiting for her when she gets out of the bathroom, and for some reason, hearing James Buchanan Barnes, Winter Soldier, deadliest assassin in recent history utter the words _what’s up_ like he’s a teenager picking up a girl at the school dance makes her want to laugh out loud.

“Nothing.” She slides the phone into her pocket. “You good?”

“Always.”

“Perfect.” Natasha strides past him as the train pulls into the station.

 

***

 

She’s got no leads to go off of, except for stories. Nothing except memories that may or may not be real, and dozens of doubts running rampant in her head, and one name: Vera Sokolov.

“You still haven’t told me who we’re looking for.”

Natasha ignores him in favor of letting a parade of cars whisk by on the street, before making sure it’s safe to walk to the opposite sidewalk.

“A girl. I know she works here.”

“Friend of yours?” Barnes asks sarcastically as Natasha motions for him to follow her down the busy street.

“Not exactly,” Natasha admits. “If I had my way, I’d never speak to her again. But I don’t have a choice. It’s the only lead I have.”

Barnes gives her a wary look as she stops at the corner, fishing a piece of paper out of her pocket. She points him in the direction of a seedy bar, one that, from the looks of it, has seen better days. They walk towards it and Natasha pushes open the door and then scans the room, walking purposefully to the counter where she orders two vodka sodas. She cringes inwardly at the way she pronounces _stoli_ , and tries to ignore the judgmental look from the young bartender.

“Your Russian needs work,” Barnes offers sarcastically.

“Shut up,” Natasha orders in response, and she swears she sees Barnes smile. She turns back to the bartender as two glasses are placed before her, and takes a deep breath.

“YA ishchu Vera Sokolov.”

She hears Barnes hiss behind her but doesn’t turn around; she’s wanted to avoid this particular instance just in case it was a possibility. For her part, she couldn’t be sure what he did and didn’t remember. Maybe his memory is like Clint’s, where he only remembers what he ate for lunch. Maybe his memory is like hers, and half of it is made up of lies.

“Fuck, Natalia.” He breathes out slowly as they slide into a corner booth, and his eyes are wide and huge. “ _That_ Vera Sokolov?”

Natasha furrows her brow. “You remember her?”

“Of course I remember her!” Barnes looks a cross between furious and intrigued, and Natasha can’t decide which emotion is more prominent. She’s as good as anyone at reading emotions, and Barnes is, well…

_Neprinuzhdenno, Soldat._

“She was Yelena’s master!” Barnes continues, breaking Natasha out of her thoughts. “Worse than Yelena, she had the _entire_ Red Room at the palm of her hand, worse than Madame, she was --”

Barnes stops as a shadow falls over the table, and looks up. Natasha follows his lead and sucks down her drink a little faster, feeling the vodka warm her insides.

“Natalia. This is unprecedented.”

Natasha keeps her gaze as Vera stares her down.

“I would not expect to see you in Russia. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Sit down and maybe we can talk,” Natasha says, surprised at how easily she’s able to talk to someone who she rightfully knows she’s still scared of, in a way. Barnes stays silent, and Vera raises an eyebrow as she sits slowly.

“The serum kept me young. I cannot say the same about you.”

Natasha draws herself up. “I’m fine,” she says shortly. She knows it’s not true; she’s so far from fine, but damned if she’s going to let it show. Vera smiles, and Barnes tenses beside her.

“Yes. I’m sure you are. Well, I don’t know why you’re here, but I suppose I’m not surprised.”

“I need information,” Natasha says instantly. Vera snorts quietly under her breath.

“What kind of information, Natalia?” She curls her tongue around the last letter, and Natasha suppresses a shudder at the memory of cold hands and words instructing her to kill.

“I need to find my parents.”

“Your parents?” Vera laughs loudly, and reaches for Natasha’s drink. “Oh, my dear Natalia.”

“Zatknis', _Vera_.”

Barnes’ voice comes out of nowhere, and Vera’s eyes become wide and round at the sound.

“Soldat?”

Barnes clenches his jaw, and Vera’s grin widens. “Well, well. The spy and the soldier, together again.”

 _Are_ they, though? Is there an “again”, and was there even a “before”? Clint was the soldier to her spy, even that goddamn traitor Loki had said so. But Clint was always there. Clint had remade her. Barnes was --

“I don’t care if they’re here or not,” Natasha says, stopping her own thoughts before she can keep going down the rabbit hole of introspection. “But I need to know where to start. I need to know anything. And I know you can tell me that, Vera.”

Vera clicks her tongue inside her mouth. “A house,” she says finally. “In Kiev. That is all I am going to give you. You shouldn’t be snooping around your past, Natalia.”

“I’ll snoop damn well wherever I want,” Natasha responds, getting up before Vera can respond.

 

***

 

The lead Vera gives them isn’t much to go off of. A house in Kiev, which means they have to try to figure out where, in an entire _city_ of homes, they should even start. Fortunately, Natasha has some memory locked away and although she’s not sure whether it’s real or fabricated, she decides to follow her intuition nonetheless. A small townhouse off of Peremohy Ave, wedged in between two larger properties that have clearly been renovated and are trying to push the small, run-down house out of its space the same way Natasha feels that she’s being trapped between her past and her present.

“We start here,” she says as she opens the door, picking the lock easily. “I don’t know if it has clues. But I’ll figure that out after I sleep.”

“You know where we are?”

Natasha looks around the room, taking stock of its dusty furniture and the clear indication that no one has lived here for probably a very long time. “I think we’re in the home my parents lived in after I was taken to the Red Room. But I could be wrong.”

“So we’re backtracking,” Barnes theorizes, taking off his jacket and throwing it on the ground.

“Whatever works.”

“This is not what I signed up for,” Barnes mutters as he takes off his shoes and looks around. “Also, I’m starving. We didn’t even _eat_ in that damn bar. I just got my past thrown back in my face. And some shitty stoli.”

“Suck it up,” Natasha says tiredly, throwing her hands towards a bed in the corner. “We’re staying here for the night. Is that a problem? I don’t think you’ve slept anywhere better lately.”

Barnes glares at her, and then snorts in laughter. “You are really a pushover, Natalia.”

She can’t help but smile at his words, because god, she missed this -- she missed _him_. He’s not the same person that she knew when she was in the Red Room, but neither is she. Still, he’s got a history with her that feels normal and comfortable, and Natasha thinks it’s probably what Steve feels when he looks at his best friend. It’s something she needs right now, when everything else is falling apart around her.

“If we’re going to sleep in the same room, you should at least be able to insult me, Barnes.”

“Fair enough,” Barnes agrees. “By the way, you gonna call me Barnes for the rest of my life?”

“I’ll call you whatever you want,” Natasha replies evenly. “If you want me to call you Barnes, I’ll call you that. Or I’ll call you Bucky, or James, or even Jim --”

“Jim.” Bucky snorts. “Haven’t heard _that_ once since Becca learned to talk.”

There’s a silence, and Natasha suddenly isn’t sure whether or not he wants her to keep probing at his memories, however unintentionally.

“Fine,” he says after a pause. “Bucky, I guess. Do you want me to call you Natalia, then?”

Natasha’s breath catches in her throat. _Did_ she want him to call her Natalia? It was what he knew her as, after all. And the point of this whole trip was to find out who she really was.

But Natasha still doesn’t know who she is. Was she Natalia, the girl who her father had (maybe) held and played with while her mother sang to her? Was she Natasha, the smirking, confident partner that loved Clint like a brother and cried over hardships with Laura like a sister?

Was she Irina, the Bolshoi ballerina? Or maybe she was just the Black Widow, named for her skills and her killing by the Winter Soldier, because he was the best and she was the best.

“Hey.” Barnes -- Bucky -- is leaning over. “You alright?”

“Yeah,” Natasha breathes, lying through her teeth. “Just...it’s a lot. Vera’s words...and the serum.”

Bucky is quiet for a long time, and then he slips his hand into Natasha’s. “You don’t know if you’ve taken it.”

“I don’t know,” she admits, and saying it out loud sounds so much more terrifying than just thinking it. It was easy to be in control of feelings and thoughts when they weren't voiced. “I always thought I didn’t. I always thought I would’ve known. But there’s so much I don’t remember about the Red Room. Maybe I’ve been living a lie all these years. I mean, SHIELD, and Hydra…”

Bucky squeezes her hand. “Hey, look. That’s why we’re here, right? I mean, isn’t that why we came all the way to Russia?”

_I came here to find my parents. I came here because I felt like I needed to run away._

“Yeah,” she says, unable to find the strength to feel bad about lying. “Yeah, that’s why we came here.”

Bucky frowns. “You said your parents lived here _after_ you were taken from the Red Room,” and Natasha realizes he must be trying to bring her thoughts back to things that actually matter in this moment. “How do you know that?”

Natasha swallows hard. “I, uh. Madame used to send us to ballet classes in the city. I guess it made it look less suspicious for the Red Room, but I think it was really so that we could start to learn how to spy and stuff in the real world. One day after our lessons, I saw my mom running an errand. I kind of broke the rules and followed her home, even though I knew I couldn’t really run away.”

“They never knew?”

“I don’t think so.” Natasha shrugs. “They had other things to worry about than if I had seen my family or not. They knew I’d never think of leaving, unless I wanted to die.” She pauses. “Didn’t make it any easier, though. Anyway, the ballet classes stopped after awhile. I assumed my parents moved or died...it really didn’t matter, then.”

_It didn’t matter, because I became a killer. They wouldn’t have wanted to be around for that, anyway._

Her eyes burn as the thoughts roll through her head, and Bucky smiles sadly, as if he understands what she can’t say out loud.

 

***

 

The first night, they sleep side-by-side. Natasha stays flat on her back and doesn’t really sleep, even though she hears Bucky snoring after awhile, indicating he’s all but out.

Part of it is a worry that she can’t shake, the worry that he’ll wake up in the middle of the night and grab the knife that’s in her backpack and stab her to death. Part of it is because she knows she’s had these same nightmares about herself, and she can’t get rid of that fear knowing she’s sleeping besides someone who is basically her, but on another level. After a few hours of restlessness, she gets out of bed and starts scouring the small house, keeping her movements quiet just in case Bucky does react to sound in a more sensitive way. Natasha walks towards an old bookshelf, staring at the dusty shelves. Her mother had loved to read, that she remembers -- she’s also pretty sure it’s not a total lie. She had been named for Natasha, after all; her mother had read _War and Peace_ while pregnant and had decided that her Russian daughter needed an equally beautiful Russian name.

She pauses on the memory, trying to remember her mother’s voice as she read from her favorite book, while Natalia would lie in her crib and stare up at her, wishing she could form the words to respond. The first time she had mentioned that she actively remembered being a baby, Clint had scoffed and rolled his eyes.

“No one remembers being less than a year old, Nat,” he had said in the middle of finger painting with Cooper. “You can barely talk. Trust me." His fingers had jerked towards his son. "You think he remembers crying when Laura wouldn’t change his diaper right away?”

But she did remember, and she knows she remembers, and lately she’s found herself picking at that memory, wondering if Clint’s words were right and maybe she wasn’t as confident about her past as she thought she was.

Natasha takes out one book, and then another, not even sure what she’s looking for, and a piece of paper flutters to the ground along with a cloud of glittery dust. Natasha coughs quietly as the scent irritates her throat and leans over to pick up the piece of paper that’s fallen, freezing when she sees the writing. It’s in Russian, but she would recognize at least one of the names anywhere.

“Tell me you slept at least a little.”

Natasha cringes as Bucky’s voice echoes from behind her.

“Not really,” she admits as she turns around to meet his gaze, her voice hoarse. She clears her throat and tries again. “I --” She stops, looking at his arm, unable to find the words, and Bucky’s eyebrows knit together.

“Oh.”

“It’s not that,” Natasha protests, even though it kind of it. Bucky’s frown deepens.

“You really thought --”

“You’ve been brainwashed for years, and I haven’t seen you since you dragged my ass out of a burning truck in Odessa, so I don’t know what I thought,” Natasha snaps, tiredness and annoyance seeping into her bones. Bucky’s mouth tightens and then relaxes.

“You’re not wrong. I am a monster. Only when I’m triggered, though.”

Something about his tone makes Natasha ache, because she understands. How could she prove she wasn’t a monster, too? Sure, the last time she had been triggered badly enough to hurt someone was more than five years ago, but was that ever something that really worked its way out of her system?

Could she ever _not_ be Natalia Romanova, Black Widow of the Red Room?

“Forget it,” she says quietly, waving her hand at him. “We should get going, anyway.”

Bucky groans. “I barely got out of bed. And where are we supposed to go? I thought that this was where we were starting our search.”

Natasha waves a piece of paper in front of his face. “One good thing about being up all night is that you get bored and do half the work yourself,” she replies with a smirk. Bucky strides forward and snatches the paper, squinting at the faded Russian.

“Ilya Belova.” He frowns again and looks up. “Motherfucker. Is that --”

“Yelena’s brother, yeah,” Natasha finishes. “Found his name in some old books my parents had. I don’t know if they were just hiding information or if he really had something to do with this whole Red Room thing, but it’s not a stretch to think so.”

“If you’re looking for Yelena, you’re not going to find her,” Bucky warns. “I mean, I don’t keep tabs on my past, but I haven’t even seen her since the shootout in Ulaanbaatar.”

“I’m not looking for Yelena,” Natasha says. “As much as I’d like to shoot someone in the face right now. I think Ilya will tell us exactly what we need to know. But first --” She nods towards the door. “Neither of us can do anything on an empty stomach. So. Breakfast.”

 

***

 

They eat at a small outdoor cafe that could pass as slightly charming, if not for the cloud of tension Natasha feels hanging over her, the one that comes with feeling like you’re trapped in some dream you want to get out of, but you know you can’t.

Clint calls again while she’s shoveling scrambled eggs into her mouth. She ignores the first call, and then the second one. He’s pissed. What’s worse, it’s not even a guess -- she _knows_ he’s pissed. Bucky gives her a curious look as she casually shifts against the vibration in her pocket.

“You should answer that.”

“I should,” Natasha replies carefully, drinking black tea. “He’s trying. It’s not his fault.”

Bucky sighs, flexing metal fingers that glint in the sunlight. “He’s gonna be pissed.”

“He’s already pissed.” She picks at more of her breakfast and Bucky sits back in his chair.

“Look, I don’t know what the fuck you’ve been doing for the past few years, Natalia, but can I tell you something? The whole running is pointless.”

“Says the man who spent his life running and plans to continue to run,” Natasha counters.

“Yeah, but you’re not wanted by the entire world for crimes you don’t even remember committing. I don’t have a choice.”

Natasha doesn’t have an answer for that, because the thing is, she was once the same person he was. She was once someone who was wanted by the entire world for things she had done against her will. Thanks to Clint (and, in part, thanks to Laura), she’s not, now. She hasn’t been for a long time.

“It’s the same thing,” she decides, signaling for the check, avoiding Bucky’s glare.

 

***

 

Ilya Belova lives in a house too small to be called an actual house. It’s more like a shack, the tiny desolate places Natasha used to hear about from her dad when he delivered food to the poor and came home from his merchandise runs. Ilya opens the door on the fourth knock, and furrows his eyebrows at the sight of Natasha and Bucky.

“Ilya Belova?”

“Yeah,” he responds gruffly. Natasha looks at Bucky, and he sighs.

“My khotim govorit' o krasnoy komnate.”

“Krasnoy komnate,” Ilya repeats. _Red Room._

Ilya opens the door and Natasha walks inside, following Bucky’s lead. The inside of the house looks a little more livable than the outside, though not by much. Natasha tries to find some semblance of sympathy for the man.

“I have not seen Yelena for some years,” Ilya says in broken Russian as he waves his hand around. “What makes you think I know where she is?”

“I don’t,” Natasha admits. “I’m here to talk about me.”

“You.” Ilya sits down on a chair and it looks like it hurts to move, as if his body is older than his actual age. “What about you?”

Natasha lets out a long breath. “I’m looking for information from when I went to the Red Room. About my parents.”

“Your parents,” Ilya repeats with a hoarse laugh. Bucky’s arm shoots out, gripping his neck.

“Answer the damn question.”

To his credit, Ilya doesn’t even flinch. “Your parents gave you up, Natalia,” he says tiredly, not bothering to move from Bucky’s grasp. “What else do you need to know?”

Natasha doesn’t look at Bucky, because she won’t let Ilya have the satisfaction of knowing how his words have affected her.

“I need to know why.”

“Why.” Ilya shakes his head as Bucky releases his throat. “Why did we do anything we did in those days, Natalia? It was a means of survival. Do you think your parents were thinking of your future when they handed you over to Ivan, when he came to your house? They were thinking about themselves.”

 _My parents would never do that_ , Natasha wants to say. Not her parents, not the ones that she remembers, the ones who read to her and laughed with her. She can’t seem to make the words come out, though.

“The serum.”

Ilya blinks rapidly. “I don’t know anything about a serum. Maybe Yelena --”

“I don’t _care_ about Yelena!” Natasha spits out angrily. “This is about me, and I need to know about myself.”

“Calm yourself, Natalia.” Ilya reaches for a cigar and lights it with a pack of matches he removes from his jacket pocket. “Yelena was the reason you were not thrown to the wolves. The Red Room would not dare dispose of a pair of sisters so easily.”

Natasha's mouth goes dry, her stomach rolling, all the contents of breakfast threatening to come up. “Yelena was my sister?”

“Half-sister,” Ilya corrects. “Your mother, she had her secrets. Your father knew.”

“My father…” Natasha’s head is spinning, and the world suddenly seems like it’s been thrown off its axis. “I didn’t meet Yelena until I was in the Red Room.”

“No,” Ilya says. “You would not have. She lived with me and our parents, before they were taken away. Once the Red Room knew there was another daughter of Romanoff descent out there, they did their job to bring you in.”

Natasha’s jaw clenches, and fire threads through her bones. “So it was Yelena’s fault.”

“That you were taken away?” Ilya looks surprised. “No, no dear Natalia. That was your mother’s fault, for sleeping with the wrong person.”

Natasha wants to lash out -- she wants to so badly, she wants to lose her cool and become Black Widow more than Natasha Romanoff, but Bucky gets there first, gripping Ilya’s throat again.

“Watch your goddamn mouth.”

Ilya chokes against Bucky’s grip, and then rolls his eyes. “Kill me," he rasps. "I don’t care. What do I have to live for, anyway?”

Natasha watches in helpless silence, trying to find words, while Bucky keeps his hold. At the last second, he lets go, letting Ilya slump forward.

“Apparently nothing.” Bucky looks at Natasha. “Come on, Natalia. We’re done here.”

Natasha can’t argue with that.

But fuck, she wishes she could.

 

***

 

They go back to the house, because they can’t think of anywhere else to go in the moment. Natasha feels like she’s in a daze; she walks inside without really seeing anything or taking note of anything, and sits down on the bed, staring at the wall. After a few moments, the bed dips next to her, and there’s the cool touch of metal pressing against her bare arm.

“Did you know?”

“No,” Natasha replies dully. “How could I know?”

“I don’t know,” Bucky says hesitantly. “I always...I dunno. I didn’t know what Hydra did to me, when they took me. Not the first time. And not this time.”

Natasha shakes her head. “They never told me. They never even hinted at it. It makes me wonder what else in my life was a lie.” Maybe Clint had been right. Maybe she didn’t really know what was real after all. But then there’s a metal hand on her own, and then --

“I know what you’re thinking.” Bucky’s voice is low and full of gravel. “That you’re not real. That none of it is real. But I am.”

And that, right there, that’s what Natasha realizes she needs -- someone to tell her she’s real. That there’s _something_ real, and he knows that, because he’s lived walking that treacherous line between fantasy and reality. She looks up, realizing she can’t see because her eyes are full of water, and Bucky reaches up with his non-metal hand to brush a thumb under her eye.

And then she’s kissing him, full-on, almost desperately, pulling him back onto the bed. Bucky draws back initially but then gives in, and it’s like a chasm has been opened up. Everything that felt familiar about her past rushes back to her, from the kiss to the dark nights spent in damp tunnels underneath the Red Rooms floorboards, to the hot breath and stubble against her cheek.

“Natalia…” He gasps as he undoes her pants, cold metal fingers brushing her stomach. She shuts him up by kissing him again and drags him closer, running a hand through his thick dark hair, before her hand drops to mess with the buckle on his jeans, shoving his pants down.

He needs it as much as she does. He’s missed her as much as she has. She knows when he exhales into her mouth, soft and relaxed, so much like the man she knew as the Winter Soldier before the Winter Soldier was a killer. When they were just Barnes and Natalia, two people bred for war who liked to find stolen moments of humanity lost in each other’s touch and bodies when no one was looking.

He damn near rips her pants and underwear off so that he can grip her thigh, parting her legs as he lowers himself against her, his tongue working his way down her neck and throat. Natasha finds herself aching for this kind of touch, this desperate intimacy that she hasn’t felt in forever. Clint and her had slept in the same bed together as partners, warm heat pulsating between them, Natasha’s head stuffed into the nook of his shoulder. But it had never been like this -- it had never been Clint trying to _sleep_ with her, She had felt intimate with Clint in a different way, the way a child might feel intimate with their best friend, the way a sister might feel intimate with their brother, the only other person in the world who understood why they woke up in the middle of the night with tears on their face.

She comes easily, and it feels good, and it feels earned, and after it’s all over, she finds herself relaxing into his good arm, her head pressed over the uneven scars that dot his chest. She thinks she probably gave him a good amount of those scars, but she can’t quite remember.

“Can I ask you a question?” His voice is soft, like the gravel from the past few days has been thinned out, and it makes Natasha smile.

“Okay.”

“What were you doing in Prague?”

 _What wasn’t I doing in Prague?_ Natasha asks herself silently. It was the first place she had gone to after Odessa, when her gunshot wound had healed. She’d needed to get off the grid, and she’s not surprised he had tracked her there, even if he’d never made himself known at the time.

“Making pornos. Really really rauchy pornos.” The response is worth it to hear Bucky choke on his own spit. “I’m kidding. I was working as a hostess at the Domus Henrici. Can I ask you a question?”

“Do I get to answer with something equally snarky?”

“Depends,” Natasha decides. “Was that really you, when you pulled Steve from the Potomac after the helicarrier fell? Was that Bucky and not the Winter Soldier?”

“Yeah,” Bucky says quietly.

“You almost killed him. Why did you save him?”

Bucky’s mouth twitches into a smile, and the only reason Natasha catches it is because she lifts her head at the precise moment his breathing stutters. “Because he was Steve. That little shit was like a fucking walking disaster. Always needed to be saved.”

It’s not the answer Natasha expects, but at the same time, it is, and she laughs before she can stop herself. “Yeah, well.” She sobers, thinking of stolen cars and New Jersey and having to kiss Steve in a mall because he had absolutely no idea how to be a spy. “I guess some things don’t change much in 90 years.”

“No,” Bucky muses, stroking her hair, fingers trailing through fine strands. “I guess they don’t.”

 

***

 

“So Yelena was my sister.” Natasha’s pouring from the thermos of coffee she’s procured, and Bucky takes his mug almost before she finishes.

“Half-sister.”

“God, that’s so disturbing. And Vera knew where my parents lived, after I was taken away. Which means she had visited them or knew people that knew them.”

“You’re implying that Vera killed your parents,” notes Barnes as he drinks his coffee. Natasha hugs her arms to her chest, trying to warm herself through a thin sweatshirt.

“I wouldn’t put it past her. But I don’t know why my parents would have been targets to begin with.”

“Even though you were a child of the Red Room?” Bucky asks curiously.

“Yeah.” Natasha nods. “It was us they wanted. And if Ilya was right and my parents willingly gave me up, then no one would have bothered to come after them. At least, not at first. Giving me up would’ve been their sacrifice and punishment, even if it was a choice they made without remorse.”

“I’m not sure what you’re getting at,” Bucky says, shoving a piece of burnt toast into his mouth as he talks. The chewing obscures the rest of his words. “I mean, okay. Let’s assume this was the last place your parents were before they died. How are we ever going to find out where they are?”

Natasha cringes. “I, uh. I know where they are.”

Bucky looks up and swallows, his throat working to process both food and words. “You know?”

Natasha winces more visibly. “Yes.”

“So you knew where they were buried this whole time? You _knew_? And we just trekked all the way to Russia on some wing and a prayer for a wild goose chase, for nothing?”

“That’s not why I came here,” Natasha answers angrily. “I didn’t come here to find out where they were buried, I came here because I needed to find out what happened to them. I needed to find out what happened to _me_. It wasn’t like I was given some fucking dossier on their life or something!”

“You came here because you didn’t want to be alone!” Bucky argues back. “You made me come all the way here with you, just because you needed someone, Natalia!”

She opens her mouth to respond and starts towards him, intending to defend herself, but stops short when her foot sinks into the floorboard underneath her. Natasha stops in her tracks, frozen in place, and looks down with a frown.

“What’s up?” Bucky asks, and Natasha realizes he must notice the change in her features.

“I think…” Natasha trails off as she lifts her foot, experimentally putting it down again. She gets on the floor, tugging at the wooden board. After a few sharp pulls, it lifts, exposing what she notices are a steep flight of stairs.

“Help me with the other ones,” Natasha says, all but forgetting their argument. Bucky gets down next to her, abandoning his coffee, and uses his metal fingers to easily pry up the four floorboards next to the one Natasha’s already removed. With more room to see, it’s clear that there’s a set of stairs leading down into what looks like another part of the house entirely.

“Hidden basement,” Bucky mutters as he glances down the stairs. “I fucking hate hidden basements.”

“Yeah,” Natasha agrees, trying to suppress a shudder, because it reminds her too much of the Red Room. “Grab me the flashlight?”

Bucky rummages through Natasha’s bag until he finds a medium-sized flashlight, switching it on. Natasha sticks the end in her mouth as she walks down under the stairs, keeping her hand on the railing to make sure she doesn’t fall through the steps and break her neck, using the light to guide her.

“All clear,” she decides, calling back up and coughing on dust and dampness. Bucky’s slower than she is coming down, but eventually ends up next to her, rubbing his face with his good hand.

“What the hell is this?”

Natasha can’t respond, not right away, because it takes her just as long to take in what she sees and wrap her mind around it. There’s what looks like a study hidden underneath the house -- a desk and another bookshelf and a filing cabinet, as well as a computer that looks as old as the one Natasha had seen in the bunker in Jersey. She tries not to think about it. It would be stupid and paranoid to assume that Zola followed her, had been uploaded here, too, miles and miles away from the life she’d known and made for herself.

“Natalia?”

Natasha walks forward and sifts through the papers on the desk. “Help me look through these,” she says, finally finding her voice. She shoves the dusty papers at Bucky. “There might be something here about the Red Room.”

Bucky takes the papers without responding, squinting in the dim light as Natasha continues to search. She finds an old lamp with a bulb that somehow isn’t completely dead and switches it on, bathing the room in thin golden light. Even though it makes things easier to see, the whole aura makes Natasha feel even more isolated and alone.

“Nothing here,” Bucky says, dropping his hands.

“Nothing?” Natasha asks, refusing to give up this easily when she feels like there had to be something hidden here. “Nothing about Project Rebirth? The Red Room, Ivan, Ilya, Vera? Are you sure?”

“Pretty sure, yeah.” Bucky finds her eyes. “I’m sorry, Nat.”

Natasha nods slowly. She doesn’t want to let her disappointment show, it’s not fair to him that she’s taking all of her personal issues out on the one person who knows what it’s like to be in her shoes.

“Wait, wait.”

Natasha’s head snaps up as Bucky narrows his eyes at the floor, where he’s dropped the papers in defeat. He motions to the ground, where two pieces of paper -- older looking than the rest, thicker, and embossed with what Natasha can see are formal seals -- are peeking out from where they must have been stuck to the other papers. Natasha leans down to snatch them and sucks in a sharp breath as she looks at the thin, faint writing. Bucky leans over, his eyes widening.

“Is that real?”

“That’s the question, isn’t it?” The birth certificate she’s holding certainly  _seems_ real, down to the signatures and official stamps and dates. It lists her name -- Natalia Alianovna -- and her date of birth. “1984.”

“Do you…” Bucky exhales slowly. “Do you believe it?”

Natasha swallows. “I don’t know,” she admits, and she suddenly feels entirely dumb. How could she have thought it would have been so easy to just find a piece of paper, or hear a person that knew about her parents or her past, and believe their words? It was as stupid as the idea to come all the way out here, hoping to find more than just fractured memories.

“Hey,” Bucky’s voice is soft and he’s by her side, his breath tickling her skin as he kisses her neck. “Nat, it’s okay. We’ll figure this out.”

“Yeah,” Natasha says, swallowing hard. “We will.” She looks up, refusing to let him see how much water has pooled in her eyes. “Find me a first aid kit. I know there has to be one somewhere.”

Bucky looks confused but starts searching the room, before climbing back out of the basement. Natasha hears the floorboards creaking as he moves around upstairs, and sits down on the floor while she waits, chewing on her nails.

“You’re in a shit ton of luck,” Bucky says when he climbs back down into the basement. “I found this one in the closet, and I’m pretty sure it’s, like, fifty years old. Should still be stocked, though.” He joins Natasha on the floor. “What are you doing?”

Natasha searches through the first aid kit until she finds what she’s looking for -- a small vial and a needle. “What I should’ve done a long time ago.” She unearths a lighter from her back pocket and nods towards him. “Hold my arm. I think your fingers should be strong enough to get a vein.”

“Nat, what --”

“I’ve been in and out of hospitals for years,” she says as she inspects the needle, holding up a lighter to sterilize it. “I’m sure I’ve had dozens of fucking tests done on me for every single reason, just to make sure I didn’t die. But I never had one particular test, because I never thought it mattered.”

“Christ, Natalia. Never let it be said you weren’t dramatic.”

“Speak for yourself. You shot President fucking _Kennedy_ to make a point.” She winces as he wraps his fingers around her forearm a little too tightly, producing a few popped veins. “You wanna join me?”

“Nah.” Bucky shakes his head. “I know I was enhanced. Too many years on ice to think otherwise.” He smiles grimly. “Looks like it’s just you, Natalia.”

“Yebat' menya,” she mutters as she pierces her skin, watching the blood drip out of her arm and fill the vial. After a few moments of silence, she slides the needle out of her skin. Bucky lets go of her arm and grabs a thick bandaid from the first aid kit, helping to bandage the wound.

“Now what? You gonna tell me that you know of some secret lab somewhere that we can test your blood to make sure you weren’t born in 1920 or some shit?”

Natasha smiles wryly. “Now I start fixing mistakes,” she says, getting up slowly. Bucky stays next to her, watching closely, and helps her back up the stairs. Once they’re back in the main room of the house, he gets her a glass of water and makes her sit on the bed until she feels less dizzy.

“You don’t have to be here for this,” she says when she takes her phone out from her bag. “It’ll probably be a lot of yelling.”

“You think I care?” Bucky asks, scooting closer. “You should’ve heard all the times Steve was yelled at because he did something stupid. I had to stand by and awkwardly pretend not to listen...seriously, I lost count of how many times this happened.”

“I believe it,” Natasha says as she dials. She doesn’t expect a small voice to answer her call, but then she realizes that she has no idea what time it is back in the States, and maybe she should’ve thought of that before calling the house, of all places.

“Hey, Lila. It’s Auntie Nat. Is your dad home?”

There’s a squeal, and then a loud thump as the phone is (presumably) dropped on the floor, Lila’s voice echoing on the other end of the line.

“Auntie Nat’s on the phone! Auntie Nat’s on the phone!”

A few seconds later, Clint picks up the phone, and the only reason she even knows he’s there is because of labored breathing that’s indicative of him being angry as fuck.

“Um. It’s me.”

There’s no response, and Natasha picks up on the sound of feet moving quickly against the floor, and then a door closing.

“Jesus fucking _Christ_ , Nat. What the FUCK! I thought you died!”

“I did,” she admits. “Kind of.”

“You better have a goddamn good explanation for why you went off the grid,” he continues angrily. Natasha sighs, looking at Bucky.

“I really don’t. I’m in Russia.”

Clint pauses, his breathing escalating. “Russia? Nat, what in _god’s_ name --”

“Clint, I need a favor.”

Clint snorts. “Yeah, that’s rich coming from the person who’s ignored my calls for almost a month. You wouldn’t even answer Laura’s messages. I can’t believe you, Nat! What kind of person are you?”

“The kind of person who doesn’t know how to deal with her feelings,” Natasha admits. She can hear Clint pacing around the room, and he hits something sharply with the palm of his hand.

“You missed Cooper’s birthday! You missed Lila’s school play, and Laura’s been so worried about you that she’s barely slept! We both thought you were lying in a ditch in some unknown country!”

“Clearly, I’m not,” Natasha says, knowing that she deserves all of his anger and bitterness. “I thought I made that clear at the Senate meeting.”

“The Senate meeting was a _month_ ago, Nat! And then we had nothing but radio silence! While Hydra was fucking up everything under our noses!”

“Clint, please,” she says, as Bucky puts a hand on her leg. “I know you’re worried. I’m trying to make myself okay with all of that. I needed to do something for myself before I called you. And I need you to help me before I can come back. I _will_ come back. I promise. And I’ll explain everything.”

“Fine,” Clint says tiredly after a long pause. “What do you need me to do?”

“I’m going to send something through the mail, highly classified. As soon as you get it, I need you to find Tony and get it to him.”

“Can’t you go through Pepper?”

“I don’t...I don’t really want to involve her in this just yet,” Natasha says, thinking of their last conversation. Pepper certainly was owed an explanation and a thank you for all she’d done, but Natasha could do that personally. “I need to confirm some things, and Tony has the technology to do it. But I don’t know where he is right now.”

“And Fury can’t help?”

Natasha closes her eyes, because she suddenly realizes there’s so much he doesn’t know. He had been at the farm the whole time, following the news, probably, but blissfully out of communication when it came to everyone’s secrets.

“Fury’s off the grid, too,” she says slowly. “We had to fake his death because of --” She glances at Bucky, who is cautiously avoiding her eyes, and decides she doesn’t need to go there just yet. “Because of Hydra.”

“Fucking hell, Natasha. You’re a goddamn piece of work, you know that?”

She does, because she knows he’s angry. He deserves to be angry. She can’t fault him for being angry.

“Where can I reach you?”

Except that was the thing about Clint. He could be angry and pissed and he could want to yell at you until he was blue in the face, but if he loved you, he couldn’t ever put that aside.

“This is a burner.” She rattles off a short number and hears a pen scratching against the paper. “I’ll get texts. And I can take it from there.”

“Should I even ask if you’ll call again?” Clint’s voice is both bitter and worrisome.

“I won’t,” Natasha says, and she can practically hear him deflate. “But I’ll be back soon. And you know I’m safe now. Tell Laura and the kids so that they don’t worry.”

“Yep,” Clint mutters, and Natasha blinks back tears. Goddamn Clint for always putting her first when she needed comfort.

“Stay safe, Nat.”

“You, too.”

The phone clicks off and Natasha drops it in her lap, looking up at Bucky again.

“Not so bad, right?”

Natasha makes a face. “Worse. But he had every right to be angry with me. We don’t do...we don’t do this.”

“Run off to another country with former boyfriends and fuckbuddies?” Bucky asks, leaning his head on her shoulder. Natasha smiles wryly at the wall.

“Disappear without at least letting each other know that we’re not dead.”

Bucky sighs against her. “Disappearing isn’t such a bad thing,” he says quietly. “You get used to being a ghost. But you miss people.”

“I’ve been a ghost my whole life,” Natasha replies. “Except unlike you, I’ve been hiding in plain sight.”

“Eh.” Bucky shrugs and lifts his head. “I dunno. I was around more than people thought. Sometimes, you just don’t look hard enough.” He winks and Natasha shakes her head, feeling comforted.

“I knew I missed you.”

 

***

 

Clint texts her while they’re on the train back to Belarus.

_Received. Sending to TS. He’ll call. - CB_

Bucky had helped her package the vial of blood along with a set of hastily written instructions, and they had sent it three days ago by express delivery. Then she had taken the time with Bucky to clean up the house and replace the floorboards to the hidden basement.

She had left everything intact, closed up the house tight, set the table and made the bed, because it made her feel good to leave things looking nice. The only thing she had taken from her parents’ house was _War and Peace_ , and the book had been tucked tightly into her travel bag as she ignored Bucky’s stares.

The train rumbles on, spinning visuals of golden and green and industrial cities passing in front of her like a carousel. Natasha turns a page in the book, one hand brushing lightly over Bucky’s dark hair, which is splayed across her thighs where his head is pillowed against her knees.

She doesn’t pay attention as the train takes her away from Kiev. She knows she’ll never go back. Like so many other things in her life, this will be a memory, now.

 

***

 

By the time they arrive back at Minsk, her phone is vibrating again. Unlike every other time her phone has vibrated in the past month, however, she picks it up.

“Hello, is this Natasha Romanoff, super secret spy and international woman of mystery?”

“Funny,” Natasha replies dryly. “I’m already regretting asking you to help me. You got the package, right?”

“Yeah,” Tony says, and Natasha hears him rustling through some papers. “Your boyfriend sent it to me. You know I’m always interested in experiments and blowing things up, but what am I even looking for?"

“The serum,” Natasha says as she walks ahead of Bucky in the crowded station. “The same stuff Steve was given by Erksine. The stuff that made him stronger. And younger.”

“Huh.” Tony sounds interested and intrigued. “Really?”

“That’s what I’m trying to find out,” Natasha says. “I just need confirmation. I know you can run the tests. I know you know how. Please.”

“Hmmm.” Tony sounds thoughtful. “Friends helping friends, I guess. Okay, if I do this, will you at least go back and visit Barton? He’s going crazy without you.”

“I know,” Natasha says with a sigh. _Goddamn best friend problems_. “I promise, I will.”

Tony hangs up, and Bucky raises an eyebrow as Natasha puts the phone away.

“Stark is actually helpful now, huh?”

“He’s always been,” Natasha says. “He just…” She trails off, thinking. “He gets caught up in things. It’s not his fault. His dad --”

“Yeah,” Bucky interrupts tightly, as if he’s remembering something that he wants to forget. “Anyway, why are we back in Belarus?”

“Because,” Natasha says, motioning towards the outside of the station. “We’re going to see my parents.”

 

***

 

Mariya and Sergei Romanova are hidden among the tall greens of Polesky State Radioecological Reserve, their gravestones choked with dirt and moss. Natasha wonders how many children or workers have stomped through the park, not even caring that two people who had once been loving parents to a young girl lay beneath them. She remembers reading _The Hunger Games_ with Cooper on a day that was too rainy to go outside -- the last installment, where Katniss talks about the game arenas being destroyed and how her children unknowingly played on the graves of so many people who had died. Clint had found her punching a bag in the barn later that night, and had watched her silently while she mourned for an unfair life she never asked for.

“How long have you known?”

“That my parents were here?” Natasha bends down and brushes grass out of the way, rubbing dirt from the weather-worn gravestones set in the ground. “A few years. I never came out here, though. I didn’t need to.”

Bucky bends down next to her, and puts two metal fingers against the gravestones. “They would have been proud of you, Natalia.”

Natasha’s eyes burn. “Maybe,” she agrees, thinking of SHIELD and Hydra and dumping secrets onto the Internet. She thinks of running across rooftops, blood-stained hands grasping for anything that could be considered an escape. She thinks of Clint and Laura, nights spent at the farm lying in their living room with a blanket and hot chocolate, the closest thing she’s had to home since Clint brought her in so many years ago. She sits back on her heels and pulls a few weeds, along with some flowers, and places them on the graves.

“Do you think they knew?” Bucky asks in a low voice. “I mean, I know Ilya said they gave you up willingly. But you do think they knew?”

Natasha knows what he’s asking, the question hidden underneath the simple curiosity. Did her parents know that by giving her up to the Red Room, they were condemning their sweet, innocent child to a life of crime and murder and experimentation?

“I really don’t know,” Natasha admits, staring at the graves. “I want to say no. But maybe I’m just telling myself that so I can make myself feel better.”

Bucky takes her hand, squeezing it. “Steve didn’t know what he was getting into when he became Captain America,” he says. “He just wanted to fight in a war. That’s why he took the serum in the first place. But then the world decided they needed an icon, some sort of propaganda shit, and that’s what he became instead. He never asked for that. You know when he really became an actual fighter and hero?”

“When he went to rescue you from Hydra,” Natasha says quietly, trying to stifle a laugh. Clint hadn’t known what he was getting into either when he rescued a crazed and brainwashed Russian in Stalingrad. He just had a damn good heart and a good sense of trust.

“I have an old safe house somewhere close to here,” Natasha offers, staring up at the sky. “We can camp there for the night, at least, and then tomorrow you can go wherever. I’ll keep my promise.”

“I can handle that. Besides, one more night with the Black Widow isn’t exactly a punishment,” Bucky says, kissing her in the middle of the park.

 

***

 

Natasha’s bolthole is Orsha, and by the time they make it inside the small cabin-sized house, Natasha feels like she’s ready to collapse. The exhaustion of travel combined with the mental exhaustion from all of her emotions in the past few days are wearing on her in a way that she can’t explain.

She walks inside, discards her clothes in a heap on the floor and crawls into the small bed, pulling the musty covers over her head without so much as a warning to Bucky. Twenty or so minutes later, there’s soft fingers trailing over her side, and the smell of something warm and floral tickling her nostrils.

“Rooibos tea,” Bucky explains when Natasha pulls the covers off and opens her eyes. Bucky’s sitting next to her, his hand resting on her calf. “Found a hot pot and some working water in the kitchen.”

Natasha smiles, managing to sit up, and takes the tea from Bucky’s hands. “Just like Estonia,” she says softly, and Bucky laughs under his breath.

“I was wondering if you’d remember that.”

“How could I forget?” Natasha asks sarcastically. “You threw me off a building when I tried to run.” She catches Bucky’s apologetic grin, and the feeling of warmth in her bones is replaced by a chill when she realizes her phone is going off with a message. Bucky realizes it, too, meeting her eyes.

“You want me to get it?”

Natasha swallows and then drinks more tea. “Yes,” she whispers, because suddenly, she’s terrified. Would it really make a difference if she was 95 or 31? Would that change anything that she’d done in her life, or her relationship with Clint and Laura and Steve and Thor and Tony? Would it even matter? Would anyone else even need to know?

“I can look, if you want me to.” Bucky’s holding the phone out, the screenside facing down towards the floor, and Natasha shakes her head.

“No,” Natasha breathes, realizing all her limbs are shaking. Bucky carefully takes the tea from her when the cup starts to spill its contents onto the bed. “I need to find out for myself.”

Bucky nods at his hand. Natasha reaches her hand forward, trying to steady her heartbeat.

“YA zdes', Natalia.”

_I am here. I am here, don’t you cry little spider, they won’t hurt you. I am here, and we will make them pay for hurting you._

Natasha takes the phone before she can stop herself and flips it over. She stares at the screen.

_Happy 31st, Nat. Drinks on me when you get back to New York._

Natasha barks out a laugh and then a sob, and Bucky brushes the tears from her face.

“Natalia, it’s okay. Whatever it is --”

“No,” Natasha says, sobering and wiping her eyes. Relief spreads through her bones and she doesn’t even know why, but she feels _relieved_ , and she’s normal. She can still be normal. She’s always been normal. “The birth certificate was right. I didn’t take the serum. I really was born in 1984.”

Bucky stares at her, and then his lips curve into a smile. “Does that mean I’m robbing the cradle?”

Natasha sputters through her tears. “Oh my god, please no,” she mutters, shoving her head in her hands. “That’s horrible.”

“Yeah, but I am, like, actually 95," Bucky points out. "And you’re still only 31. So basically, you sucked the dick of an old man.”

“Please stop,” Natasha moans from between her hands. “You’re making it worse.”

Bucky laughs, and Natasha laughs, and she finds that it feels so good to _laugh_. It’s the first time she’s felt lighter and more like herself since before Hydra, since before this whole mess started and fucked with her head.

“Do you feel any better?”

“Not after _that_ ,” Natasha grumbles, swatting at him. “But I still...I don't know. What if this still isn't me? I mean, yeah, I know who I am now, more or less, and I know I'm not someone who's been walking around since 1910, but --"

"But, that doesn't matter," Bucky breaks in. "You know who Natasha Romanoff is, and that's what matters right now. So maybe we can figure the rest out another day. Or another century."

Natasha falls back on the bed, closing her eyes, and Bucky leans back with her, wrapping an arm around her waist.

"I hate that you're taller than me."

Bucky chuckles under his breath. " _Revnost' vam ne podkhodit_ , Natalia. Jealousy does not suit you. Besides, you weren't complaining about height when you were between my legs."

"I have thighs of steel and I could kill you if I wanted to," Natasha reminds him. She turns her head so that she can see him more clearly. "Promise me you'll still remind me of who I am even if you live to be 200 years old and I'm hobbling around with a walker?"

"Is there a risk of you killing me with your legs if you're using a walker?" Bucky asks, turning his head to kiss her leg. He sighs. "You really want me to promise? That's not exactly something we do in our line of work."

"Yes," Natasha decides. "And yes, don't underestimate me in my old age."

Bucky smiles. "Okay. I Promise. We've made it this far, haven't we?"

They have.

Natasha smiles and closes her eyes, feeling safe, feeling warm, and feeling home.

 

***

 

“So where will you go?” Natasha asks as Bucky packs up the next morning. She’s still in bed, the covers pulled up over her naked body.

“You said you wouldn’t ask where I was going,” Bucky reminds her as he pulls on his pants. Natasha watches his metal arm glint in the sunlight streaming through the patched up parts of the roof.

“Right,” Natasha amends regretfully. “I know. I was just curious.”

Bucky flashes her a smile. “I don’t know, actually, where I’m going to go. Maybe I’ll just find a place where I can like, open up a fruit stand and stay undercover, away from the world.”

“If you do, I demand you send me free samples,” Natasha decides. Bucky laughs and walks over to the bed, leaning down to kiss her.

“Are you _bribing_ me, Natalia?”

In response, Natasha kisses him, long and hard. She owes him this, she knows that, but she doesn’t want him to leave.

Bucky holds her hand until the last minute, when he finally pulls away and walks out the door, leaving her alone in the quiet of the safe house.

 

***

 

“If I knew you were coming, I would’ve made you an omelette,” Pepper says when she opens the door of the New York penthouse Tony had purchased for her a few years ago. Natasha smiles, holding out two cups of Starbucks coffee.

“I didn’t really have time to call.”

It’s true, in a way. She had left Russia, made it back to New York, and immediately found a cheap barbershop in Harlem that had agreed to cut her hair on short notice. Then she had found herself in front of Pepper’s door.

“Well, feel free to come in,” Pepper says with a small smile, motioning for her to step through the entryway. Natasha puts the coffee down on the side table and takes in the apartment as she walks in, noticing the expensive art on the walls and the display of Louboutins lined up by the closet door.

“I owe you thanks,” Natasha says, turning around to face Pepper, who has moved to the ornate bar by the stairway. “For helping me.”

Pepper nods. “It was my pleasure,” she says while pouring two glasses of bourbon. “Did Natalie Rushman find what she was looking for?”

“No,” Natasha says as she accepts her glass. “But Natasha Romanoff did.”

Pepper holds out her own glass and when they clink, Natasha feels warm all over again.

 

***

 

It takes another three days to get out to Iowa, and when she pulls up to the house in her rental car, she finally lets herself feel all the emotions that have been coursing through her since she left Pepper’s apartment in New York.

She still didn’t know who she was. She had lied to Pepper, but only a little. She would never know her parents, who they really were, she would never have anything from them other than a name and memories. She'd always known that, ever since she'd gotten confirmation from SHIELD that her parents had died, but somehow, the trip to her past has made her realize it a little more.

But Bucky had made a good point. She knew enough of who she was now. She still had pieces of herself that needed to be put back into place, but she didn't have to do it alone anymore. She had Bucky. She had The Avengers. She had Nick, and Maria, and now Sam.

And that’s where Clint’s family had come in, and she’d missed them. She’d missed Clint’s crooked smile and Laura’s hugs and Lila’s dance moves and Cooper’s slight lisp. They were, for better or worse, her family. She had been at their birthday parties and birthing classes, and at their hospital bedsides. And as Natasha looks up at the house, she knows she has to face the music that comes with treating her family like shit.

“Auntie Nat! Auntie Nat, Auntie Nat!”

She’s barely out of the car before Lila’s running out of the house, barreling down the steps in nothing but her pants and socks. Natasha bites down on a laugh as the little girl rushes into her arms.

“I missed you all the time!”

Natasha hugs Lila as Laura comes into view with Cooper, who is looking up at Natasha with that half-annoyed, half-suspicious look that Natasha swears he inherited from his father.

“Where were you?”

“On a trip,” Natasha says, putting Lila down and holding her arms open. Cooper considers her response and then walks over to hug her.

“A secret spy stuff type of trip?”

“Something like that.” She looks down at him, and he narrows his eyes.

“You missed my birthday.”

Natasha cringes. “I know, buddy. That’s my fault. I missed a lot of things.”

“Yeah, I think I forgot what you looked like.”

She glances up as Clint speaks, taking him in. He’s dressed in ripped jeans and a plaid flannel over a thick black t-shirt, and he’s got more of a beard than a goatee.

“I deserve that,” she says, removing herself from Cooper so that she can hug him. He’s not Bucky, and that's a good thing. He’s a part of her past and her present in a different way.

“You cut your hair.”

“Yeah.” Natasha smiles as he runs his fingers through the strands. “I guess I needed a change.”

“Uh huh.” Clint raises an eyebrow. “Does that change involve running off to Russia on some sort of redemption spree?”

“It did,” Natasha says, looking at Laura, who is smiling but also has tears in her eyes. “I’m sorry. I know I worried you. I missed you.”

“We’ll talk about it over dinner,” Laura decides, and Natasha figures that's about as much forgiveness as she's going to get for now. “If you’re ready to talk, that is.”

Natasha thinks of Bucky, and of gravestones in a park, and of Vera and Ilya and hidden basements in a house in Kiev. She thinks of the birth certificate tucked between the pages of _War and Peace_. That’s something she still hasn’t told Clint about -- how she was named. Maybe it’s time for him to know that.

Maybe it _is_ time for him to know everything.

“I think I am.”

Laura laughs. “Well. It’s about damn time.”

Clint smiles at her and Natasha looks up at the farmhouse, at the cloudless sky and the trail of smoke coming from the chimney. Her phone buzzes in her pocket, and she takes it out to glance at the screen.

_Birthday drinks on me if you’re ever in Bucharest. Stay the girl I fell in love with in Russia. I'll send you a plum. -BB_

Natasha smiles, and lets Bucky’s words fill her heart.

“Yeah,” she says, realizing that for the first time in awhile, she might really be okay. At least, she could get there. “It is.”

**Author's Note:**

> FWIW, the Russian in this fic is taken from google translate, and I accept any misgivings/mistakes that may have made its way into this fic.
> 
> Yell at me or find me on tumblr! @isjustprogress


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